the ways that family life is exactly the same all the time and wildly different moment to moment–

i’ve never met anything that made me swing from one extreme to the other so violently and so beautifully.

navigating that swing from amazing to awful, from boring to brilliant, it’s challenging. like flying on a trapeze with zero warning and definitely no training. parenthood is the kind of thing that no matter how much you “prepare” for it you can never know until you’re swimming inside it day in and day out. maybe lots of other people aren’t as shocked by all of it as i am, but someone out there is, and so i feel this pull to keep talking about it. okay, that was a lie. i feel a pull to keep talking about it because I HAVEN’T FIGURED IT OUT YET. So i wander around in words and tie them up with nice endings that i believe on my good days, and on the days when i’m sobbing on the phone to my mom and she’s saying, i’m so honored that you let me see this, that you don’t try to put on a good face or pretend, and i’m saying, i would, i just have no idea how!–those days, those days i just have a question mark all over everything. i’m learning to sit with the unknowns and the questions and the smacking up against my own inadequacies and trying to give myself grace a bit more. so maybe you aren’t surprised at all that i love spying on all of you and figuring out how YOU’VE figured it out and dancing together around the circus of family and saying, “what is this like for you?” and “here’s what it’s like for me.” if art is giving voice to something unheard that’s what i’d say: here it is, this is what it feels like, sometimes. swinging on a trapeze and trying to do it gracefully while the only people whose opinion you actually care about watch you fall, pick you up, and love you back to life.

p.s. i have 5 family session spots left this fall to get photos in time for holiday cards! let’s chat about your family session, m’dear. (that means i’ll send back all the pricing info super fast + we can talk dates!)

einstein said there are only two ways to live your life. one is as though nothing is a miracle. the other is as though everything is.
i swing deep in both extremes every day, so instead of pounding myself with judgment i want to just gently lead myself to swing into the miracles side more often. the kids have already peed on stuff and are coloring on the walls and i’ve literally slammed the door in my own face? (actually happened–hashtag clumsy) how cool is it that i HAVE a door to slam in my own face. total miracle. magic eraser, miracle. the fact that i get to be the one to have these experiences with my kids, make these memories and show up for them every single day. miracle. the computer i’m typing on, the way my words and photos can reach people a zillion miles away from me and we can connect and feel less alone in the hard things.
i mean! i’ve been doing this experiment for a few days now and it has rocked my world. of course i can’t ALWAYS be in miracle mode, can’t forever be seeing every single thing with miracle eyes right away with no initial reaction. but wow i’m a good at convincing myself, so i might as well convince myself that everything in the universe IS in fact a miracle as often as I can.

kids are always a miracle, whether they’re screaming or laughing or loving or pouting. we had the whole spectrum in this session and gosh i’m always GLAD to see it. it reminds me that we’re all human, and we’re all allowed to be miraculous right alongside our hard parts–maybe that juxtaposition right there is the miracle.

p.s. why yes, i am continuing this lil’ project on the grams with #brookesmiracleeyes if you want to tag along! and if you want me and my maybe-obnoxious miracle finding self to come photograph the miracles in your life i WANNA. let’s chat about your family session, m’friend.

we are here. we are here. documenting our days has such a powerful grounding force to me when i do it right. i need as many practices as possible to bring me back to the beauty that laps up on the shore of RIGHT FREAKING NOW–otherwise i’m miles away planning a beautiful tomorrow.

some people have a glorious ability to stay HERE with no problemo. I’m not one, naturally, in my own motherhood. give me someone else’s family and i am one hundred percent in, it feels like time slows down for me to witness everything and turn it over in my hands and paint it into my camera just the way i see it. so in trying to bring that into my own day to day family life, i’m practicing that same noticing. having the camera at the ready so i can hold that piece of us now and later and eventually, much later after we are long gone someone will see these photos and know that there was love. fierce, awkward, shimmering, hard, all-encompassing love. it sure helps me to see it from the outside right now.

here’s a long pile of beautiful exhausting days smushed together.

hey. still here? me too. would it be too forward to ask ya to take it from here to REAL life? Wink wink. Okay that was dripping in cheese but if you want to have photos of your crew that speak to the guts of who you are, i’d love to be your lady. let’s chat about your family photo session m’dear! whether it’s an in-home session or somewhere in the wild or (my fave!) a little of both, let’s get you in the frame with those peeps you love the very most.

i might make you dance in the rain.

beautiful clothes by hum stitchery.

wanna book a family session that’s a little bit crazy (i mean there are little and big humans involved…it’s bound to get a lil wild) and a lotttt soulful? i’m ready for ya. send me a lil email and i’ll send you all the pricing and availability info. your life matters and i want you to see evidence of that so so bad that i don’t even care that i’m starting to sound desperate and salesy cause the honest truth is i’m desperate not for me but for YOU. for all of us. to see ourselves doing the hard hard work of raising tiny souls and raising ourselves in the process. for all of us to see ourselves doing that work more beautifully than we believe we are, more heartful than we give ourselves credit for, and with more long term ripples than we can ever dream. sermon over. let’s make your family photo sesh happen.

Merrilee is the genius behind Mer Mag–and so of course I feel akin to her on the level of being a creator and artist and mother but the thing that left all of our jaws on the floor (besides the fact that she let 14 photographers take over her house and photograph her family!) was how authentically she lives her art. how much it lives and breathes in every corner, with her projects and her kids’ and all of it flowing in and out of such down to earth NICENESS. you can hear about it, and heaven knows the internet has heard a thing or two about ‘authentic living’ in the recent past–but until you SEE it, in person, you have no idea.

People like Merrilee make me want to become a writer or someone who has a legitimate reason to just follow people around all day and watch how they do what they do–in their art but also in their regular lives.

of course they won’t think it’s extraordinary really at all, but for us on the outside–it’s like watching how they make it rain in the movies, or seeing the curtain pulled back on a gorgeous set without the stage lights on: pure magic and at the same time completely real.

hey there my friend! want to have your family photographed in a way that speaks to the guts of who you are, and not just the smiling faces you sometimes have? yeah. me too. send me a little note and i’ll send you all the family session pricing and availability (still have some fall dates free yo!) and i can show you the beauty you’re creating every single day, minute detail by minute detail, weaving a wonderful web of wild love that NEEDS to be photographed. let’s do this.

the clouds and raindrops falling inside my phone screen predicted panic.
 
for a lady who loves sun and light to the point of flirting with the border of worship i was a little heartbroken that the weekend of my retreat–planned and curated to loving perfection–was maybe probably going to be totally ruined by rain. growl.
 
but of course like everything that comes to us unexpectedly, it was laced with silver lining and a completely different feeling than i had ever anticipated or dreamed of creating, but it was there waiting for me to lean in. so lean in we did. (and bonus, everyone got to see how i work in hard–dark–indoor light situations and try their hand at it!)
 
it feels trite to me that the only thing i can talk about in relation to the retreat is the weather, but to describe anything else would feel overblown and so sugar coated you would think it couldn’t possibly be real. so the only thing to say is that for me, it was pure and complete heaven on earth for three days. it filled my heart up and overflowed it out. i ran on adrenaline presenting and shooting and sharing and loving the crap out of everyone who was there. (i still miss them every day. to share so much and then have to go back to real life…it was a bit like having an ice bucket dumped on my head. or maybe how the heroes feel when the Fab 5 leave after a week of coaching and care and life-changing everything. wahhh.)
 
creating together with people who understand and see you is an experience for which i haven’t found an equal in any other sphere of life. this need we all have to create and to be seen–when those blend in perfect swirl it’s truly otherworldly. the souls who came co-created that with me and it was just a huge, huge GIFT.
 
and now, before you squint or eyeroll or gag at the intensity of how much i friggin love my own retreat–haha–i’ll get to the images.

And yes, hello, if you’re wondering if there will ever be another Love Soaked Retreat the answer is HOLY YES! Spring 2019, details to come. Sign up to be notified via email when deets go live here.
Also if you’re wondering if you can have your family photographed by me the answer is again HOLY YES and you can email me right here for all the pricing and availability m’love.

every year winter feels so long and so dark and dreary and dreadful i’m sure spring will never come again.

and then, the trees grow buds and blossom and i sob into those blossoms sometimes with sadness and sometimes with happiness but either way, spring came and it was felt.

now it’s summer though so why we talkin bout spring?

here’s the part where I laugh at my own intensity because I want to blow this up into something bigger, which is this:

our lives are littered with love all year round even though we feel it more at some times than others–I keep thinking about how we lose the people we love and then find them again, lose ourselves and then find ourselves again. Lots of times without realizing it, until we’re found once more. So like the seasons changing maybe it’s all one cyclical round of knowing and forgetting, losing and finding, seeking and discovering. Some days that sounds like a big ball of tired to me, but mostly I want to welcome that search with open hands.

(ps just have to let you know: this is what it looks like when i accidentally hurt your child 13 times and they just want to eat marshmallows the whole time. it’s fine, really and truly.)

HELLO guess what if you’re still reading you might be interested in a family session of your own, in which I unfortunately can’t promise not to accidentally hurt your children but I CAN promise to give you images that show you something deeper than just painted smiley cookie cuttered usual-ness. It’s all there, it’s all real and it all deserves to be seen. Let’s chat about your family session.

it’s funny how humans can be so guarded, because we reveal parts of ourselves unintentionally, everywhere

like leaving a map of footprints back to our truest heart.
 
i’ve never understood people who can hide their feelings (surprise surprise I’m not one of ’em)–and the idea that we even should hide them is honestly still foreign to me. I get that most people do it out of habit, to protect themselves, and because it admittedly *can* be a bit off-putting and maybe dangerous to jump into a stranger’s arms the first time you meet and spill your deepest guts on their freshly laundered wholly presentable normal-people clothes.
 
So of course there’s some magical elusive “happy medium” where we all get to skip small talk and go right to things that matter but without any risk or rejection or discomfort. please and thank you.
 
It makes me smile that we as humans have figured out SO many things–we have created incredible technology, mind boggling inventions and achievements that make our lives so much easier and more enjoyable and all around fabulous–but we haven’t been able to hack our human experience yet. We still have to grapple with tough emotions, every single one of us, and there’s no permanent way to avoid or sidestep pain, grief, anger, disappointment, shame. There’s part of me that’s like, “HEY, we’ve invented the iphone and indoor plumbing and 3D printing, why can’t we just have a parade of positive emotions and experiences all the day? Why haven’t we spent time figuring out how to rid ourselves of the emotions that bring so much suffering to people all over?”
 
But the wise part of me knows that it is essential for us to struggle inside our humanness, to make room for the glory. And certainly we can help ourselves and others suffer less, and surely we’ve got a whole lot more sadness than is necessary, but to be true to who we are (the whole version) we have to feel it all. To turn over those hard parts in our hands, not in a frantic panic to rid ourselves of them forever, but to give ourselves the gift of having seen life in full color, rich and blinding and intense but forever worth it.

 

i feel it bowl me over every time–no matter if we’re in central park or in your tiny first home–the ache of loving someone else so much it rips you and heals you

and their little heart beats outside of yours but you feel in sync

until you don’t

and you see how every milestone comes with a letting go–

he takes his first steps and soon he won’t need you to carry him anymore, soon you’ll have to ask permission to hold him close

he wants to explore and run on his own and you want to let him

despite the fear of all the desolation that lives outside your warm arms

but he still reaches out his hand for your face and the grace

of being loved back

so unconditionally and wholly

is what flattens me.

HEY yes it’s true this session was in central park in nyc and although i don’t photograph much outside of utah, if you’re outside of utah and feeling a little pouty like why can’t brooke come to my city GUESS WHAT I just might. Send me a message with where in the world I should go and I’ll keep you updated on future travel.